In P5/6 pupils we have been sharing our learning with our parents. We have been using loop games, cubes and PowerPoints.
Month: February 2020
Deans Den visit P5/6
We were lucky enough to be invited to the P5/6 class to watch them perform their musical talents which they had been developing during a music workshop. We were so impressed that the children could keep in time with the music and perform a variety of songs. Some of the Deans Den children joined in the singing and dancing and Mrs Morrison was so proud of them all, well done boys and girls!!
Whats’ on…
Week beginning 10th February 2020
Mon –
Nursery outdoor learning session 1.20pm
P1 and P2 multi-sports lunch club
P4-7 Football club 3.15pm
P5-7 art club 3.15pm
P1 science club 3.15pm
Tue-
PEEP sessions
NYCOS working with p4
Planet soccer nursery session
Netball club at 3.15pm
Home learning club 3.15pm
Wed-
Scripture Union lunch club
Planet soccer nursery session
Netball team tournament at Inveralmond HS 3.15pm
P1-3 football club 3.15pm
Sewing club 3.15pm
Lego club 3.15pm
Numeracy club 3.15pm
Thu-
P4 Futsal session
Zumba club 3.15pm
Cookery club 3.15pm
Lego club 3.15pm
Fri-
HOLIDAY!
Don’t forget the school is closed to pupils until Wednesday 19th February
P2 Update
Numeracy We have been continuing to learn about time. Scarlet - "We have been practicing quarter to and quarter past." Brendan - "We know about half past and o'clock." Writing We have been learning about writing notes. Ethan - "You don't need full sentences when you write notes." Lexie - "We have been learning to write a sentence from our notes." P.E. We have been learning different jumps. Isla - "We did bunny jumps over a bench." Darby - "You need to bend your knees when you land."
Topic We started our new topic of Castles. Finlay - "We learned the different bits of a castle." Lexie - "There is a moat around the castle which is hard to get over because it is super deep." Isla - "There are pointy towers." Sophia - "There are tiny windows called arrow loops so that you could shoot arrows out of them." Today was Participation Friday. We had a special visitor come in to work with us and help us begin the design process of our products for the spring fayre. Keep an eye out to see the finished products!
Update from Primary One
This week we have been working hard to become more independent learners. We have focused on strategies that we could use when writing to help us become more independent. The main strategies we have found to be most useful are using a wordbank, an alphabet strip and attempting to sound out words phonetically. The children have done so well and are becoming more confident and willing to “give it a go”. Some examples below.
Hamish McHaggis
We have just about come to the end of our tour of Scotland with Hamish. The children have really enjoyed it. This week we drew pictures of Nessie and tried to think about words to describe her. The children thought she was beautiful, shy, friendly, enormous etc.
We also tried to plot some towns and cities he had visited on a map of Scotland.
Also a big thank you to Elizabeth who along with her mum made this beautiful tartan handbag.
Developing the Young Workforce
Children are becoming more confident when leading learning and are now more readily volunteering. We are working on the skills required to lead e.g. good listening, fairness, encouraging members of their team etc.
Children have also been trying to work collaboratively with each other and developing turn taking as well as listening and talking skills.
Numeracy Challenge
This week the children worked in small groups. They had to add 2 numbers together and display the answer using dots patterns.
Have a lovely weekend!
P5 Enjoy Their Performance!
Literacy
We have practised our visualisation skills. After reading a section of our class novel we looked for clues in the text and drew in detail the picture that was in our head.
Spelling
We discussed the difference between short and long vowel sounds. Then we compared words such as hoping and hopping and biter and bitten. We learnt that if there is a long sounding vowel in the middle of the word then there will usually be 2 consonants after it e.g. dinner. Some of us found lots of examples when we went on a dictionary hunt looking for these types of words.
Numeracy
We used the laptops and played games to help us recall our table facts quickly.
Also we have started to learn about fractions.
This week some of us beat our previous score in BIG MATHS!
Health
This week we learnt about how the dreams and goals of children in different cultures are sometimes different from our own.
We made dream spirals for these children:
Art
After a recap of our work on using line last week we completed observational drawings of various objects. Afterwards we wandered round and looked at other people’s work and gave them feedback. We were particularly impressed with these: 
Don’t forget your fluffy, cuddly toy for next week’s observational drawing session!
Music
This week was our last ‘Move to the Beat’ session and we invited some of the other children in the school to our last workshop.
Keris – I enjoyed it because all the little ones started dancing.
Chloe – The little ones started singing.
Georgie – I liked the drumming when we split into 2 groups.
Topic – Mary Queen of Scots
After reading through some more information about her life, we drew a comic strip representing the key points. These will be displayed in our classroom soon!
Compliments
Look at who got the compliments this week!
Finally this week Keris would like to mention she has felt more confident at putting her hand up in class.
Well done Keris!
Primary 2/1 Weekly Update.
Let’s start off our blog with our learning highlights this week from the children.
Elkie – My highlight was making my Highland cow because I loved making it.
Sai liked making his fact file about highland cows, his favourite fact was that their hair is so long it goes over their eyes, but it is there to protect them.
Jordon – I liked drawing Nessie because she goes under water.
Nathaniel- I liked learning about the sound x because it was easy to write!
Tadas – I like the daily 5 because it is easy for me!
Robyn – I liked learning all of our sounds, every Monday I look forward to seeing all the new letters for the week.
It’s been another busy week where we have been learning all about the Loch Ness Monster! We watched the Nessie cam but unfortunately didn’t catch a glimpse of her this time, why not have a look for yourselves at home!
Use this link https://www.lochness.co.uk/livecam/
This led to a very interesting discussion about whether we thought Nessie existed or not….. Most of us are believers! We made our own Nessie to decorate our Learning Journey wall. We had to use our scissors very carefully and we came up with some amazing Nessie designs.
In writing this week we wrote postcards to Nessie, telling her all about ourselves and the things we like to do. We all wrote at least 3 sentences all by ourselves. After reading the story, Hamish the Highland Cow by Natalie Russell, we also designed and wrote our own fact files about Highland cows and created a pastel drawing using a smudging technique to create a ‘hairy’ effect!
We are still working on the topic of Time in Maths. This week we have been looking at how we measure time. We talked about seconds, minutes, hours, days and weeks. We discussed how long we thought it would take us to complete certain activities. We had a team work challenge where we had to match up activities with how long we thought they would last. 
Lennon thought this was a good challenge and Erica said it was lots of fun.
We have also been discussing the seasons and which season we like the best!
Euan’s favourite season is Summer because that’s when his birthday falls.
Jordon loves Winter the best because the snow comes out.
Ethan loves Autumn the best because you can collect all the leaves.
Kayden loves Spring because you can start to play outside.
We designed some posters to show different changes which take place in each season.
As part of our numeracy we have been examining how to double numbers. We are getting really good at doing this mentally and talking about our answers. One of our focuses this week has been how to use a number line to help us solve addition calculations by counting on. Its really easy when you know how!
Just a little reminder for the children to bring their red homework folders to school every day with their reading books. Many thanks!
P3 ‘Touring’ Scotland
This week we have been continuing to focus on ‘Oor Wee Tour of Scotland’ topic. We have been working individually and collaboratively with our class members as well as the pupils in P3/4 to complete our leaflets, factfiles and group posters; all of which provide information on a different city in Scotland. We have had to use good communication skills in order to gather and record our facts, as well as being mindful of the feelings of others and taking everyone’s opinions on board. We used our ICT skills as well as our skills in researching and recording of information. We discussed as a whole group how our work had to be ‘presentation perfect’, which means neat writing, colourful pictures and completed tasks. Our work is now getting to the completion stages and ready to be displayed for everyone to see! We are looking forward to ‘visiting’ another city soon, and this time we are going to be using our skills in drama to create a TV advert to tell others about our next city!
“I have enjoyed doing the poster because we got to work in groups and we could do pictures and writing.” commented Erin
“I enjoyed doing the leaflet because of all the writing we could put in and it helped me spell words that I didn’t know” said Joseph
“I liked doing the poster because it was nice working with people on this. We weren’t all doing the same but we did it together so it was all of our work!” commented Maisy
“I liked doing the group poster because it had four boxes that we could fill with lots of stuff.” said Daniel
Primary One Science Club
This week in science club we have been investigating, how do clouds make rain?….how very appropriate for today’s stormy and unpredictable rain showers!
We made our very own rain cloud in a jar. We used shaving foam to represent the clouds and blue food colouring to represent the rain or precipitation. We made predictions about whether we thought the clouds would sink to the bottom or whether the water will turn blue.
What we found out was that the food colouring went through the cloud to make rain and it was blue.
We watched this clip…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncORPosDrjI and had a discussion about how rain is formed. We even had a go at saying some very impressive scientific words like – precipitation, condensation and evaporation.
The children have decided that next week for our focus we will be making a volcano explode! It’s going to be great fun. The children are all showing so much enthusiasm for conducting our experiments week on week, we really hope we are fostering a real love for all things science.
Feed the Birds!
This morning, in The Den with Mrs Wallace, we heard a story about a hungry blackbird and his search for food in the winter. We thought about all the birds we see in the playground and wondered if they were hungry too. We worked really hard to make bird-feeders using apples, sunflower seeds and a branch for a perch! It was a bit fiddly at first but we managed! Once we had finished, we went outside to hang them in the quiet garden. We can’t wait to see what birds stop by for a snack!
